Normal women have got to start pushing back against the FemiNazis in #MeToo era, because if a man does it they are accused of everything from misogyny to sexism, even when they are 100 percent spot on, so we must stand by their side.
The attacks on men these days for just about anything they say or do has just hit the height of absurdity, when a male political theory professor at King’s College London, Ned Lebow, while attending an annual meeting of the International Studies Association (ISA), entered an elevator with other men and women, one of which was Professor Simona Sharoni, a professor of women’s and gender studies at Merrimack College in Massachusetts and a feminist activist, and when someone asked what floor he needed, he joked "ladies’ lingerie" department.
I'm old enough to have heard that joke before, and even laughed at it a couple times. Then again, I am a normal woman, and not a FemiNazi as Ms. Sharoni, the feminist activist apparently is, because rather than just shrugging it off if she didn't find it funny, she immediately ran back to her hotel room and pulled up the association’s code of conduct, then filed a complaint with the association’s executive director, who forwarded it to the group’s Committee on Professional Rights and Responsibilities, which somehow decided his harmless, old joke, "violated" the conduct code.
Evidentally a silly old joke, one dubbed a "dad" joke by some, is treated as "sexual harassment."
When Mr. Lebow heard they had initiated an investigation, he followed the same code of conduct rules and attempted to address it with Ms. Sharoni, by emailing her.
Lebow insists it never should have gotten to that point because he tried to resolve the problem informally, as the association’s conduct code recommends. After being informed that his conduct was under investigation, Lebow wrote Sharoni an email assuring her that "I certainly had no desire to insult women or to make you feel uncomfortable." He suggested that Sharoni, who was born in Romania and raised in Israel, might have misinterpreted his remark. When he was young, in the 1950s, he said, it was a "standard gag line" to ask the elevator operator for the hardware or lingerie floor as though one were in a department store.
"Like you, I am strongly opposed to the exploitation, coercion, or humiliation of women," Lebow wrote. "As such evils continue, it seems to me to make sense to direct our attention to real offenses, not those that are imagined or marginal. By making a complaint to ISA that I consider frivolous — and I expect, will be judged this way by the ethics committee — you may be directing time and effort away from the real offenses that trouble us both."
It turns out, that’s not the way the association read the matter. Boyer informed Lebow that his remarks had been deemed "offensive and inappropriate." An even "more serious violation," than the elevator remarks, Boyer wrote, was "that you chose to reach out to Prof. Sharoni, and termed her complaint ‘frivolous.’"
The association then demanded Lebow write an "unequivocal apology" to Sharoni and submit it to them by May 15. He is refusing to do so, calling this whole episode a "a horrifying and chilling example of political correctness."
Note: Lebow was the 2014 recipient of ISA’s distinguished scholar award.
THE BIGGER PICTURE - ATTENTION SEEKERS, VICTIMHOOD & THE WAR ON MEN
As to the association, he is right, it is political correctness gone wild and an appeasement mindset. Appease the perpetually offended feminists or they will sic a mob of other FemiNazis on you.
As for Ms. Sharoni, it is not about political correctness, it is about the constant need to attack men for anything and everything they say, do, how they sit (man-spreading), how they speak (man-splaining,) and the need by today's radical feminists to be offended, or to find offense in everything around them.
The need for attention over manufactured outrage, which is why I call her an attention whore, is shown on her Twitter account, where until this was reported by the Washington Post, she hadn't been active since October 2017, then wham, there she is, sharing news reports about this idiocy, and of course, she is also claiming she is a "victim" because people are now criticizing her for her frivolous complaint that could potentially ruin a man's career.
Notice the pattern? Radical feminists like Sharoni attack someone, file formal complaints over an innocuous joke that is older than I am, then cry and claim victimhood status when others push back against her. That is their modus operandi.
NORMAL WOMEN ARE STARTING TO PUSH BACK AGAINST THESE FEMINAZIS
Via Sharoni's Twitter feed, she has shared two stories seemingly sympathetic to her, but I find it very interesting that the initial story by Washington Post, by Ruth Marcus, is not one of those articles regarding this that she chose to share.
I do not link to Wapo often, but credit where it is due. The reason Sharoni most likely did not share that article is because Marcus sides with Lebow, and is pretty critical towards Sharoni, as the concluding paragraphs of her piece make clear:
Nonetheless, count me with Lebow. The days of women feeling compelled to stay silent in the face of sexist remarks or conduct are thankfully on the way out. Hear something, say something, by all means.
But for goodness’ sake, let’s maintain some sense of proportion and civility as we figure out how to pick our way through the minefield of modern gender relations. Not every comment that offends was intended that way, and intent matters. Maybe check in with the speaker before going nuclear? Maybe consider that there is a spectrum of offensiveness? That not every stray statement by a 76-year-old man warrants a resort to disciplinary procedures?
Because making a federal case, or even a disciplinary one, over a stray elevator remark is not only, well, frivolous — it’s also counterproductive. Take a culture of eggshell fragility. Pair it with a hypersensitive disciplinary mechanism. What you get is a result that serves only to diminish real, and continuing, instances of truly offensive behavior.
Marcus is not the only woman that has decided to push back against Sharoni, as just the latest example of how out of control radical feminists have become, as across the internet, in reaction to not only Sharoni sharing articles about this, but on comment threads of others writing and talking about it, we are seeing a "rise of the normal women" speaking up, in reaction.
Granted, there are plenty of men fighting back against Sharoni's attack on Lebow, using her "victim" status to file this outrageous complaint against him, but when it comes to radical feminists, it is critical, especially in the era of the #MeToo mob mentality and the constant attacks against men in society, that non-radical women join with the men and take this on before it gets even worse.
User Carrie Carey to Sharoni's posting of an article about her complaint and the reactions to it, says: "It is shameful and destructive for you to be causing this level of trouble for a mere joke."
Loula Belle in the same thread: "My god this complaint is embarrassingly pathetic. And of course it has to be a feminist doing the whining, that's entirely predictable." Belle also adds a few memes, including the one below:
On another article Sharoni shared about this, Deplorable Anna states "You are ridiculous and you trivialize actual harassment. Don’t take things too seriously. I’m a woman and I make the same “ladies “lingerie” or “fine furs” joke all the time. Young people don’t get the throwback to department stores of old. #lightenup."
A user named Amy Beth responds: "She’s not young. But she certainly behaves in the manner of a spoiled, entitled millennial about whom the world DOES NOT revolve."
Ben Shapiro shared his article titled "Professor Tells A Harmless Lingerie Joke On Elevator. Unfortunately, There's A Gender Studies Professor Aboard. You Can Guess What Happened Next.," over at the Daily Wire, and women there too are taking Sharoni to task, with user Catherine commenting "Seriously, whenever I hear the words "gender studies" my eyes glaze over, and my brain completely shuts down. It seems to always be involving some utterly pointless rant by someone who is chronically offended. It is exhausting."
Female user SeldenGADawgs captures the mindset of us "normies," meaning those of us that are simply sick and tired of radical feminists acting like FemiNazi's: "Trust me as a woman: MOST women loathe this “genders studies” woman & want to tell her to sit down & shut up OR do NOT go outside for eveyone’s sake."
BOTTOM LINE
Those are just a small sample of what I am seeing as pushback against FemiNazi's today regarding Sharoni's frivolous complaint against a distinguished Professor over a simple, harmless joke, but the amount of pushback I am noting across the internet tells me that women, mostly conservative, have truly had enough of seeing these radical feminists drag the rest of us down with them.
In the aftermath of the MeToo movement around sexual harassment, I wonder how much progress we’ve really made; recently, several men have privately told me that they have no intention of hiring women for open roles, or of managing young women if they can avoid it. I now worry that the movement has already sparked a destructive backlash.
As someone who works in finance and is currently a student in the executive MBA program at the Wharton School, I’ve heard men say that they’re less likely to hire or associate with women as a result of the intensity of MeToo. Whether consciously or not, I am not sure how any man in America isn’t reassessing his hiring practices. I have heard directly from male executives at two prominent Wall Street firms that they are moving their female direct reports to report to female bosses.
One particular paragraph caught my eye:
My close friend, Vanity Fair contributing editor, Bethany McLean, views this fear as another excuse to exclude women. Before becoming a writer, she spent her days as an analyst at Goldman Sachs and certainly understands Wall Street culture. “That argument betrays a fundamental lack of respect for women,” she told me. “When men say that they’re afraid of being alone with women, what they’re actually saying is that there is a high likelihood that all women are crazy and will read something into a situation that isn’t intended. Women shouldn’t buy into the patriarchal point of view that women can’t be trusted.”
That right there is the problem with not only the #MeToo movement, but with radical feminists like Sharoni. All women are not "crazy" and all women will not "read something into a situation that isn't intended," but people like Sharoni, who did exactly that by claiming a simple, innocent joke was some type of sexual harassment towards women, perpetuates that mindset.
That is the bottom line- If normal women, those that still have a sense of humor, appreciate men and their masculinity, do not stand up, speak out and fight side by side with men against these radical feminists, then we will all end up being looked at as being as crazy and unhinged as they are.
Excellent commentary below as to how "political correctness" is destroying us.
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